


In The Lion's Den

by InterstellarVagabond



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 01:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9411017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterstellarVagabond/pseuds/InterstellarVagabond
Summary: A collection of stories about daily life for the paladins including Pidge and Hunk bonding, Shiro being a space dad, Klance moments, and everyone defending transgirl Pidge written for my brother as a birthday gift and now free for you to read as well! Enjoy!





	1. Are You Thinking What I'm Thinking?

Pidge’s hair had started to grow back during their short time in space. Since she no longer needed to keep it short in order to disguise herself, she was all too happy to encourage it back to its former length. Not that she had been feeling particularly dysphoric since coming to the castle, but she did regret chopping off two years worth of work. So her hair was pinned back with clips borrowed from Allura, a treasure that had been a bit painful to get as the Altean princess wouldn’t stop gushing excitedly about how they could help each other with their hair. Her enthusiasm was well-intentioned but ultimately incredibly annoying. Pidge adjusted one of the clips, sliding it further into place as she gazed up at the green lion.

“Whatcha up to, Pidge?” Hunk broke into her thoughts. The larger paladin was peeking in through the door to the room Pidge had claimed as her workshop. It looked like he was carrying in more samples of the local plant life for his “Space Victory Garden”. 

“I’m testing a theory,” Pidge left it at that. She pressed her hands together in front of her face in a trademark thinking posture that most people would take as a queue to shut up and let her focus.

“What kind of theory?” Hunk asked, placing the plants on the floor and walking over. “Staring contest? I would not go there, I don’t think those things have eyelids.”

“You know how our lions talk to us sometimes?” Pidge asked. 

“I wouldn’t exactly call it talking, more like spooky…head…growling,” Hunk replied thoughtfully, “but yeah I get what you’re saying.”

“Well, I figured the lions operate with some sort of telepathic technology, just like every other piece of Altean tech we’ve come across seems to be.” Pidge explained. “The castle works with Allura’s thoughts, the lions talk to us, and other weird stuff.”

“So are you trying to talk to your lion right now?” Hunk asked. 

“I’m trying to see if I can make it do things by thinking about it,” Pidge said. “Like if I think ‘hey Green stand on your back legs’ will it do it?”

“Whoa, mind if I watch?” Hunk grinned. 

“Go ahead,” Pidge patted a spot on the floor next to her and Hunk plopped down. The pair sat in silence staring at the green lion with incredible focus. Minutes passed. Half an hour. 

“I don’t think your lion is in a very talkative mood,” Hunk said. 

“Maybe she’s shy?” Pidge cracked a crooked grin.

“She?”

“Well they don’t have manes, not that biology has anything to do with gender but I think in this case green at least is a lioness.”

“Ah, a lady!” Hunk said. “Well come on, Green! Show some girl power! Do something for us! Keep thinking Pidge!”

“Girl power?” Pidge chuckled, raising an eyebrow. 

“Or, as Lance would probably pun were he here,” Hunk said, raising a finger. “Grrrrrl power.”

Suddenly the green lion’s enormous paw raised itself into the air and came down gently onto Hunk’s back, holding him to the ground. Hunk yelped from surprise, but didn’t seem to be hurt. He struggled under the paw, while Pidge exploded into laughter.

“Did you tell her to do that?” Hunk groaned. “Hey, this isn’t funny! The pun wasn’t that bad! Pidge think at her to let me go!”


	2. Space Dad Schedule

The only way to tell time in space was to keep your own clock. Since each planet had a different timezone and the castle had none, the collective paladins and Alteans had agreed to break the day up into a twenty-four hour cycle. Unfortunately, the difference between ticks and seconds would eventually throw everyone off, so the twenty-four hour days had become more of a suggestion than a rule.   
Still, Shiro woke up at the same time every day and started getting ready.  
First he took a shower in the small bathroom off of his quarters. His Galra tech arm seemed waterproof enough, but he always wrapped it in a towel just in case. After the shower he brushed his teeth, fixed his hair, and wiped the steam from the mirror so he could put on his makeup. He was lucky Keith had kept some of his old stuff, he’d been pretty happy to see eyeliner again after a long and torturous Galra imprisonment. Small indulgences made big problems easier.   
Next he would dress and get the food replicator to make him some food goo and a beverage Coran had assured him was quite similar to Earth coffee. He’d eat quickly, treating the food as a necessity rather than a meal to enjoy, before heading back towards the sleeping quarters.   
He always woke up Pidge first because she always asked for ten more minutes. Usually he found her slouched over a computer or sketch pad, bed entirely ignored in favor of working all night. He always let her have ten more minutes.  
Then he woke up Lance, who would complain about Keith being too loud with his exercising in the next room over, and in waking up Keith he would hear complaints about Lance playing his music too loud.   
Hunk was the easiest to wake up. No complaints there.

“I’ll start breakfast,” Hunk yawned, stretching until his shoulders popped. He grabbed his clothes off the chair where he’d thrown them the night before and started getting dressed while Shiro headed back to give Pidge her second wake up call. Strangely, today she was already up and moving by the time he came back.

“Is Hunk cooking today?” She asked.

“He said he was, yeah,” Shiro replied.

“Thank god, if I have to eat another bowl of goo I’m going to lose it,” Pidge said, tugging at her hair in an attempt to tame the bedhead. 

“Who are you even fighting in there? Your inner demons?” Shiro heard Lance shouting from the hallway. He groaned and rubbed at his temples as he went to see what the problem was this time.

“At least I actually practice!” Keith shouted, his and Lance’s foreheads practically touching. They looked like dogs ready to snap. “Unlike someone who tripped over his own bayard during training yesterday!”

“Well…at least I have bayard where it counts!” Lance threw his hands in the air and then made a gesture on either side of his hips, indicating something vulgar. 

“You have a bayard in your pants?” Keith asked, confused.

“Well I’m not happy to see you, that’s for sure,” Lance laughed, but he was still glaring.

“That’s enough.” Shiro was using what he’d heard the others refer to as his ‘dad voice’. It was the most effective voice. “Living in such close quarters means we have to compromise. Maybe one of you can switch rooms with Hunk or Pidge so you aren’t so close together, or you can schedule music and practice times during the day instead of at night?”

“Sorry, Shiro, I don’t think Keith speaks reasonable,” Lance said. 

“I don’t think Lance ever stops speaking.” Keith folded his arms over his chest. Lance opened his mouth, about to utter an outraged retort, but Shiro cut him off with a wave of his hand.

“That’s it, you two are making it hard for the whole team to cooperate,” he said. “Right now the castle is on a planet with an atmosphere similar to Earth. You two go out and take a walk to cool your heads and don’t come back until you can get along.”

“So you’re saying we’ve been banished forever?” Lance said dryly.

“How about, until you can get along for five minutes?” Shiro sighed, rubbing at his temples.

“Yes sir,” Keith said respectfully, before shooting Lance a nasty look. The pair walked off, looking like they were seconds away from physical violence. Shiro shook his head and frowned. What was he going to do with those two?


	3. Anything You Can Do

“This place looks like Disneyland puked all over it,” Lance said, gazing about the new planet. It was pretty picturesque in an almost showy way. The grass could not be greener on either side, flowers danced in the gentle wind, the weather was perfect, and some sort of animal flew overhead peacefully.   
Lance put a hand over his eyes to shade them from the sun as he looked into the distance. He noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and turned to see Keith starting down the hill.

“Hey! Where are you going?”

“Shiro told us to go on a walk,” Keith said.

“Pffft. Daddy’s boy.” Lance winked, following behind him. “Don’t get us lost, okay?”

“I have an excellent sense of direction,” Keith said, sounding a little wounded. “I lived out in the desert for years, I had to!”

“Okay, so you can find your way back…” Lance said. “…if you survive that long! This is an alien planet full of aliens. You better stick close to me so I can protect you.”

“I fight better than you,” Keith said very matter of fact.

“As if,” Lance shouted back. “Take me right now, bro! Go ahead. Punch me in the face! Try!”

Before Lance finished his sentence Keith slugged him in the face and sent him flying onto his back. 

“Okay, I wasn’t ready that time,” Lance said. “Let’s go again…”

Keith threw another punch and Lance just barely managed to dodge it. He aimed a kick at Keith’s legs and tripped him. The fistfighting turned into grappling and suddenly without realizing it the paladins had reached the edge of the hill and toppled down, down, down.  
“…Do you know where we are now?” Lance asked once his ears stopped ringing.

“…I’m sure if we climb a tree I could spot the castle.” Keith shrugged. They both looked up the hill they’d just rolled down. Luckily it was mostly that fluffy grass this planet seemed to have no shortage of so aside from a scrape or two they really weren’t hurt. However, it did look like they’d rolled a long way down. Their new surroundings showed a grove of a tree similar to a weeping willow, only the leaves were silver and the bark was purple. 

“Let’s walk around and see if we can find a place where the hill gets less steep,” Lance said after a few experimental runs up the side of the hill. They hadn’t ended well.  
The two walked through the trees, pushing silver tendrils out of their way as they went. The hill seemed to go on forever, and wherever they tried to climb up it the grass became slippery under their feet and they fell back down. Soon the sun was setting, but Keith informed Lance that they’d only been out for an hour or two so the days on the planet must just be very short.  
“Man I can’t see a thing,” Lance groaned, wishing he’d brought his phone so they’d at least have a bit of light. Keith tripped over a tree root and into Lance’s back. 

“Here, hold my hand so we don’t get separated,” Lance said after helping Keith to a steadier stance. Their hands slipped together, warm and soft. 

“Wait, is that a light over there?” Keith asked, squinting into the distance.

“Yeah, I think it is…let’s go check it out,” Lance led the way, leading Keith through the trees. As they got closer to the light they saw that it was coming from the flowers they’d seen earlier. The once normal looking flowers were now blooming wider than before and glowing in a variety of colors from every section of the rainbow. This area was particularly bright not just from the amount of flowers, but also from the small pond that the light was reflecting off of. 

“Wow…” Lance whistled. “This place is…”

“Beautiful,” Keith finished. 

“Fucking sick,” Lance corrected.

Keith approached the lake, dipping his hands in and wetting his hair and the back of his neck. 

“Mullet sweat?” Lance chuckled. 

“…yes,” Keith rolled his eyes.

“Here, I know something that will help,” Lance said smugly. Keith shrugged and sat down by the pond, looking at the stars’ reflection in the water while Lance worked on his project. His eyes fluttered shut, he really hadn’t been able to get a lot of sleep the night before. 

“Ta-da!” Lance appeared at Keith’s side with a glowing light coming from his hands. Keith blinked and took the object from Lance. It was a flower crown, woven from the bioluminescent flowers. 

“Here, let me help,” Lance took Keith’s hair in one hand and slipped the crown on with the other, placing it so it kept the hair off his neck. “Do you like it?”

“I do,” Keith smiled and pulled Lance’s hand over to his cheek, before leaning forward to press a soft kiss to his lips. The pair sat by the pond together, Keith leaning on Lance’s. They twisted their fingers together, pushed them apart, the absentminded fidgeting of a couple. 

“Do you think the others have figured out we’ve been dating for like a month by now?” Lance asked.

“I don’t think so,” Keith chuckled.


	4. Hurt Our Lion Cub?

“We’re willing to offer whatever help we can,” Allura bowed to the grispor. 

“As expected, since we are allowing you to stay on our planet,” the grispor leader sighed, examining the nails on the ends of his three pudgy fingers. He was a squat alien, he looked very much as if someone had stood on his head too long and he’d just stayed squished. He was an unattractive gray color and had four mean looking eyes.

“Well, we did respond to your distress call,” Allura reminded him.

“Even if we invited you, you’re still on our land, you’ll have to earn your keep,” the grispor said.  
Allura looked as though she was biting back some very choice words for the grispor, but she managed to keep her composure as she discussed matters with him.

“Man what a wad,” Lance whispered to Keith, who hushed him.

“The paladins will be glad to help you with these enemies threatening your people,” Allura said, gesturing to the paladins grandly.  
The grispor blinked one eye at a time and then hummed. “Well I suppose they’ll have to do. You there, boys, go to the village west of here and kill all the enemies inhabiting it.”

“Well surely we can find a peaceful way of resolving the tension!” Allura said. 

“Whatever, just go,” the grispor made a frog like croaking noise and waved a meaty hand to dismiss them. 

“Yo, you cool, Pidge?” Hunk whispered to the green paladin. 

“Yeah?” Pidge gave him a confused look.

“Cool, just wanted to be sure…since that guy misgendered you and all…cool,” Hunk said awkwardly. 

“I’m used to it,” Pidge shrugged. 

“That doesn’t mean you have to like it,” Keith said.

“Let’s just take care of the mission, I’m really fine guys,” Pidge said.  
The paladins took the lions down the village the grispor had described and dismounted, expecting an attack. What they got instead was a welcome party.

“Welcome travelers!” Another grispor ran up to them with a basket of bread in his hands. “I am Por-Grispor. Please, we don’t have much, but it is our honor to offer you food and a bed for the night.” They noticed that the town seemed to be in shambles, and all the grispor were wearing tattered or dirty clothes. Yet still they all beamed and welcomed the paladins with smiles.

“Whoa, thanks!” Lance grabbed a piece of bread immediately and had it halfway to his mouth before he noticed the green mold growing on it. “Uh…I think this one is a little…old…” he said.

“Oh, I’m so sorry…” Por-Grispor frowned. “That’s the last of the bread from my house, but I didn’t noticed its condition…”

“Nah, it’s fine bro, see I can just cut that section off,” Lance said, ripping the bread in half. Por-Grispor’s face brightened into a huge smile at Lance’s actions.

“We’re here because Mar-Grispor said that you villagers have been raiding his supplies,” Shiro said.

“What?” Por-Grispor shook his head. “Mar-Grispor…of course. Did he ask you to kill us?”

“He….might have…” Shiro shrugged uncomfortably. 

“Friends, I know you have traveled far and it is not my place to ask a favor of one I have just met,” Por-Grispor said, “but before you exact justice…would you go back to Mar-Grispor and tell him we have all been killed?”

“What? Why?” Lance asked around a mouthful of bread.

“Just tell him we are dead, and then ask to stay for dinner,” Por-Grispor said. “Watch his reaction and you will see you made the right choice in allowing us to live and lying to him.”

“Well…you do seem a lot nicer than him to be honest,” Shiro said. 

“Mar-Grispor is not a popular grispor. He’s the richest in the whole world, but he is not nice,” Por-Grispor shook his head. 

The paladins went back to the home of Mar-Grispor where Allura and Coran had been enduring the grispor’s stories of conquest and survival at the hands of his enemies. They walked into the rather large and lavish house, and Allura and Coran perked up at the sight of them immediately. 

“Ah! Our paladins have returned!” Allura said. “So, paladins, what did you find?”

“The villagers are all dead,” Shiro said. 

“What?” Allura looked puzzled and scared. Shiro looked into her eyes for a long moment and she seemed to understand that he couldn’t explain.

“Excellent!” Mar-Grispor said. “Then you may leave now.”

“Actually, we were hoping to stay for dinner,” Shiro said. “I’m sure it’s no trouble since the villagers that were raiding your stores are gone now.”

“Oh…of course,” Mar-Grispor said in a voice dripping with malice. “Very well…I shall have my servants prepare a meal for us…” he clapped his fleshy hands together and summoned two grispor servants from the other room. As he talked to them Shiro leaned over to Allura and whispered his explanation in her ear. She in turn whispered it to Coran who gave the group a thumbs up. He then mimed all of them getting on the ship and flying far far away from Mar-Grispor who was incredibly boring and selfish. They were all impressed at his miming skills.  
Allura had the paladins dress up for dinner, fetching old Altean dress clothes from unused parts of the ship. Lance and Hunk were not thrilled about the stiff fancy clothes, but Keith and Shiro adapted well enough. 

“Here Pidge, this is a dress I wore at your age,” Allura said with a beaming grin. 

“I don’t know, I don’t really do dresses…” Pidge started to say. Then she saw the dress Allura was holding out for her. It was green, just like her lion, and neither too plain nor too puffy. It looked just like something a young princess would wear. Pidge took the dress but refused to look happy about it. 

“Welcome, welcome,” Mar-Grispor said as the paladins returned once more to his home. “I have had my servants prepare a feast in honor of the deaths of my enemies.”

“Why were these villagers raiding your stores anyway?” Shiro asked. 

“The villagers were very stupid,” Mar-Grispor said. “I was able to buy all their farmland from them, and they were unable to find another way to survive besides petty theft. They insisted I had never paid them for their farms and would sneak onto the land to steal food.”

“Dastardly!” Coran gasped before giving a big wink to the rest of them.

“Indeed!” Mar-Grispor said. “Here we are, the main dining hall.”  
The paladins were seated at the end of the table an Allura and Coran were “permitted” to sit closer to Mar-Grispor. Allura seemed very angry at the idea of being “permitted” to do anything. 

“Where is the other one?” Mar-Grispor said halfway through a bite of food. 

“Other one?” Allura asked. 

“The other one of your servants,” Mar-Grispor elaborated. “There was a green one.”

“I’m right here,” Pidge said, confused. 

“You?” Mar-Grispor’s eyes widened. “Why is the boy in a dress?”

“Pidge is a girl,” Keith said firmly. 

“She’s transgender, it means that…” Hunk tried to explain.

“Ridiculous, you have a boy body so you are a boy,” Mar-Grispor said. “The notions of you off-worlders…you may return to your ship and change your clothes, and finish your dinner when you return.”

“With all due respect, Mar-Grispor,” Allura said, looking not respectful at all. “These things may not happen on your planet, but they do on many others, and we should respect the happiness and identities of all don’t you think?”

“I have no respect for boy playing dress up,” Mar-Grispor waved his hand dismissively. “In fact, allow me to help you remedy the problem.” Mar-Grispor walked over to Pidge with a fruit still in his hand. He reached forward with his free hand and before anyone could stop him he ripped the dress from sleeve to skirt, before taking a large bite out of a juicy piece of fruit grown on villager land. Suddenly, before he could even wipe the juices from his mouth, he was hit over the head by a plate. Everyone looked down the table to where Keith was standing minus one plate. 

For a moment there was stunned silence. Then the whole dining room exploded as all of the paladins, Allura and Coran, began throwing whatever they had nearest them at Mar-Grispor. Allura kneed the grispor in his stomach, where the grispor genitals were housed, and he toppled over in agony. 

“Let’s go, Pidge!” She said with a huff, turning on her heel and stomping towards the door. The paladins followed their princess back to the castle. Hunk took off his suit jacket and wrapped it around Pidge’s shoulders, and Keith and Lance stood protectively close to her the entire walk back. Pidge was silent.  
When they got back to the castle Pidge paused at the doors. 

“Are you okay?” Shiro asked.

“Yeah,” Pidge replied tearfully.

“Oh my god she’s crying!” Hunk panicked, grabbing Pidge in a bear hug. 

“What do we do?” Lance yelled. 

“I don’t know! Don’t ask me!” Keith replied, irritated and concerned.

“Guys, no, it’s okay,” Pidge said, lifting her glasses to wipe away her tears. “Honestly, it’s just ever since I left my family and came to the garrison…came out here, no one’s defended me like that since my family. And my family’s never beaten someone up for me before. That was just really great…”

“Well, we are your family,” Shiro said, smiling down at where Pidge was still wrapped in Hunk’s arms.

“Yeah, we’ve got your back,” Keith said, and Lance nodded in agreement.

“If anyone else ever acts in such a repulsive manner towards you I’ll beat them up twice as hard!” Allura said. 

“You’ll have to wait in line!” Coran said. 

“C’mon get in here guys!” Hunk said, grabbing Lance and Keith and adding them to the hug. Shiro laughed and joined them and Allura and Coran shrugged before joining in too. Soon they were all a giggling hug pile.


End file.
